"We don't think the generals are giving us their true advice," Ryan said during a forum on the budget sponsored by the National Journal. "We don't think the generals believe their budget is really the right budget."

Increase Defense Spending by $228 Billion.

Since, as CBO notes, “spending for defense alone has not been lower than 3 percent of GDP in any year [since World War II]” and Ryan seeks a high level of defense spending — he increases defense funding by $228 billion over the next ten years above the pre-sequestration baseline — the rest of government would largely have to disappear.

He wants to cut Medicaid and and health care assistance.

CBO finds that the Ryan plan would cut programs to help low- and middle-income people afford health insurance — Medicaid, CHIP, and the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies to help near-poor and moderate-income families afford insurance — by more than 75 percent by 2050, with the bulk of the cuts coming from Medicaid.

He wants to raise the eligible age for Medicare.

The CBO analysis states that the Ryan plan would raise the age at which people become eligible for Medicare from 65 to 67, even as it repeals the health reform law’s coverage provisions. This means 65- and 66-year-olds would have neither Medicare nor access to health insurance exchanges in which they could buy coverage at an affordable price and receive subsidies to help them secure coverage if their incomes are low.

He wants to eliminate the government's guarantee of healthcare.

The Ryan plan would also replace Medicare’s guarantee of health coverage with premium-support payments to seniors (starting with new beneficiaries in 2023) that they would use to buy coverage from private insurance companies or traditional Medicare. Under the Ryan budget, moreover, Medicare would no longer make payments to health care providers such as doctors and hospitals; it would instead provide premium-support vouchers to beneficiaries that they’d use to help buy coverage from private insurance companies or traditional Medicare.

Co-Sponsored the Sanctity of Human Life Act

(1) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human and is the person's paramount and most fundamental right; (2) each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and (3) Congress, each state, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories have the authority to protect all human lives.

Wishes to cut government funding of student education.

The plan proposed by Ryan (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Budget Committee, would chop away at Pell grant eligibility, thereby reducing total Pell grants by about $170 billion over the next decade; allow the interest rate for federally subsidized Stafford loans to double; end student loan interest subsidies for those still in school; and make Pell spending discretionary -- instead of mandatory -- allowing further cuts down the line. Pell grants, the largest source of federal financial aid, currently help more than 9 million students to afford college. Following last year's budget standoffs, next year's maximum Pell grant of $5,645 will cover just one-third of the average cost of college -- the smallest share ever.

Learned Economics from Ayn Rand.

"And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand."

Wants to give tax breaks to the rich, and cut funding for education, medicare, and other social programs to pay for the breaks.

Wants to replace Social Security with a privatized retirement plan emphasizing investments in the stock market. Of course, Seniors who had tied their retirement into the Stock Market would have lost everything in 2005, as many people did.

The economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005″ would have lost much of their retirement savings.

Paul Ryan’s latest budget doesn’t just fail to address job creation, it aggressively slows job growth. Against a current policy baseline, the budget cuts discretionary programs by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, sucking demand out of the economy when it most needs it and leading to job loss. Using a standard macroeconomic model that is consistent with that used by private- and public-sector forecasters, the shock to aggregate demand from near-term spending cuts would result in roughly 1.3 million jobs lost in 2013 and 2.8 million jobs lost in 2014, or 4.1 million jobs through 2014.*

His budget plan keeps $40 billion in tax subsidies for Oil Companies.

Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2013 budget resolution would retain a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion. And his budget would cut billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil and help protect middle-class families from volatile energy prices as well as create jobs.

(Paul Ryan leases land to Oil Companies, so he directly profits)

Supports neither Romneycare nor Obamacare and calls them "similar."

Supports cuts to foreign aid/non-military foreign aid, presumably believing that an increase in military spending will help to maintain our bargaining power.

More than seventy retired military officers wrote a letter to Congress urging that the body not cut the budget for non-military means of executing U.S. foreign policy.

I'm sorry to rain on your bigotry party, but what does Atheism have to do with Paul Ryan's budget or whatever?

I also find it odd that automatons like you always want to call us liberals socialist (like the Nazi kind) and talk about wealth redistribution and envy and shit... like giving the top 1% of American's 84% of the country's money was somehow an intelligent idea for the Conservative party. It's actually fucking retarded and has destroyed the world economy. In the 50's and 60's when the wealth was spread around by a top tax rate of 70-92%, our economy was the healthiest it ever was and the average income was much higher than today, even when adjusted for inflation.

And you're right, there is no discussing any topics with us when you have a dissenting viewpoint. That's because we know what we are talking about and you don't know anything until we teach it to you.Cheers.

Juan_Bottom wrote:I also find it odd that automatons like you always want to call us liberals socialist (like the Nazi kind) and talk about wealth redistribution and envy and shit... like giving the top 1% of American's 84% of the country's money was somehow an intelligent idea for the Conservative party. It's actually fucking retarded and has destroyed the world economy. In the 50's and 60's when the wealth was spread around by a top tax rate of 70-92%, our economy was the healthiest it ever was and the average income was much higher than today, even when adjusted for inflation.

Do you realize that no one actually paid those exorbitantly high tax rates? Tax evasion was commonplace and massive deductions took the real rates way below what the top payers pay today. That was why the economy did well, not because of the government taking away money.

Juan_Bottom wrote:I'm sorry to rain on your bigotry party, but what does Atheism have to do with Paul Ryan's budget or whatever?

I also find it odd that automatons like you always want to call us liberals socialist (like the Nazi kind) and talk about wealth redistribution and envy and shit... like giving the top 1% of American's 84% of the country's money was somehow an intelligent idea for the Conservative party. It's actually fucking retarded and has destroyed the world economy. In the 50's and 60's when the wealth was spread around by a top tax rate of 70-92%, our economy was the healthiest it ever was and the average income was much higher than today, even when adjusted for inflation.

And you're right, there is no discussing any topics with us when you have a dissenting viewpoint. That's because we know what we are talking about and you don't know anything until we teach it to you.Cheers.

*Likes*

Renewed yet infused with apathy.Let's just have a good time, all right?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjQii_BboIk

Also, it's not a "smear campaign," but rather an educational campaign. I'm sorry so few people can see the difference between using half-truths and rumors versus using his actual stated position and legislation that he wrote. So yeah....Everyone should really stay on topic and answer the question in the subject. You're absolutely free to post whatever facts you know about his position and his vision for America. Discussions do not mean that I have to pretend to be impartial, even though I start them.

john9blue wrote:the day of! what a fast smear campaign. or did you prepare one of these for each potential vice-presidential pick?

Can I ask what makes this a "smear campaign"? If the claims are true, it's not a smear: it's information. Many of the claims are particularly relevant given that they pertain to the fabled Ryan Plan, which seems likely to become the crux of the Romney campaign from here on out.

Juan_Bottom wrote:Also, it's not a "smear campaign," but rather an educational campaign. I'm sorry so few people can see the difference between using half-truths and rumors versus using his actual stated position and legislation that he wrote. So yeah....

Maybe if the Obama campaign would stop alleging Romney is a felon without proof and trying to tie him to the death of a woman who had cancer, it would be much easier to tell such a difference. They've tried to claim both those things and actual records as legitimate, so it can be hard to tell the difference.

Night Strike wrote:Maybe if the Obama campaign would stop alleging Romney is a felon without proof and trying to tie him to the death of a woman who had cancer, it would be much easier to tell such a difference. They've tried to claim both those things and actual records as legitimate, so it can be hard to tell the difference.

This is a real amplification of the truth, and I feel like it does your argument a disservice.

Suggesting that the Obama campaign should "stop alleging Romney is a felon" implies that the allegation occurred more than once, which I don't believe is the case. The cancer death ad is also markedly different from how it's represented here: Romney's favored form of predatory capitalism is what is linked to the woman's death, not the candidate himself.

Are a regrettable remark by an Obama surrogate and a negative campaign spot really enough to make it hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction? I don't condone excessive mudslinging, but for better or worse it's always been a part of our election-time political discourse.

john9blue wrote:the day of! what a fast smear campaign. or did you prepare one of these for each potential vice-presidential pick?

Can I ask what makes this a "smear campaign"? If the claims are true, it's not a smear: it's information. Many of the claims are particularly relevant given that they pertain to the fabled Ryan Plan, which seems likely to become the crux of the Romney campaign from here on out.

since when does a smear campaign have to consist entirely of lies and half-truths? go research what a smear campaign is. i'm not a fan of everything ryan does, but you won't see me actively campaigning against him because i'm not deluding myself into thinking that obama is any better.

natty_dread wrote:Do ponies have sex?

Army of GOD wrote:the term heterosexual is offensive. I prefer to be called "normal"

john9blue wrote:since when does a smear campaign have to consist entirely of lies and half-truths? go research what a smear campaign is. i'm not a fan of everything ryan does, but you won't see me actively campaigning against him because i'm not deluding myself into thinking that obama is any better.

Good point, a true statement can be a smear. I misspoke. Still, if Ryan is running on his economic acumen-- which certainly seems to be the case-- why wouldn't information about his budget be fair game? If it damages his reputation to shine a light on the very thing he's built said reputation around, isn't that Ryan's error more than Juan's?

john9blue wrote:since when does a smear campaign have to consist entirely of lies and half-truths? go research what a smear campaign is. i'm not a fan of everything ryan does, but you won't see me actively campaigning against him because i'm not deluding myself into thinking that obama is any better.

Good point, a true statement can be a smear. I misspoke. Still, if Ryan is running on his economic acumen-- which certainly seems to be the case-- why wouldn't information about his budget be fair game? If it damages his reputation to shine a light on the very thing he's built said reputation around, isn't that Ryan's error more than Juan's?

a smear campaign is any campaign with the intention of ruining someone's reputation. juan posted information about ryan that he personally finds disagreeable, and thought that it would convince people to vote against ryan. what he didn't realize is that much of what he posted is accepted by many people and is why they ARE voting for ryan. he forgot to post WHY ryan's views are bad for the economy, instead tossing down a bunch of links, many of which lead to blatantly biased websites.

mostly i'm bemused by the speed of his campaign and exasperated by his constant praise of things like obamacare for purely selfish reasons.

natty_dread wrote:Do ponies have sex?

Army of GOD wrote:the term heterosexual is offensive. I prefer to be called "normal"

Neato Missile wrote:Suggesting that the Obama campaign should "stop alleging Romney is a felon" implies that the allegation occurred more than once, which I don't believe is the case. The cancer death ad is also markedly different from how it's represented here: Romney's favored form of predatory capitalism is what is linked to the woman's death, not the candidate himself.

Actually, it has occurred more than once. In fact, it's been the only thing coming from the campaign and surrogates for the past 2 weeks. From Harry Reid making up the claim to the campaign itself now running ads alleging the action.

Where is "predatory capitalism" ever even alluded to in the cancer ad? The guy is blaming Romney for firing him and killing his wife. The accusations are quite simple but the truth is far from what is shown in the ad.

john9blue wrote: what he didn't realize is that much of what he posted is accepted by many people and is why they ARE voting for ryan.

That's actually what I was thinking as I read the post. Same kind of thing is happening in the US Senate race in Missouri.

Juan_Bottom wrote:I'm sorry to rain on your bigotry party, but what does Atheism have to do with Paul Ryan's budget or whatever?

I also find it odd that automatons like you always want to call us liberals socialist (like the Nazi kind) and talk about wealth redistribution and envy and shit... like giving the top 1% of American's 84% of the country's money was somehow an intelligent idea for the Conservative party. It's actually fucking retarded and has destroyed the world economy. In the 50's and 60's when the wealth was spread around by a top tax rate of 70-92%, our economy was the healthiest it ever was and the average income was much higher than today, even when adjusted for inflation.

And you're right, there is no discussing any topics with us when you have a dissenting viewpoint. That's because we know what we are talking about and you don't know anything until we teach it to you.Cheers.

Assume a person that earns 10,000 pays 0% in taxes since we know many people do not pay any taxes. So their after-tax income would be $10,000. If we are reducing that 2.0%; that would bring their after-tax income to $9,800 dollars; or $200 difference per year. That breaks down to less that $17/month, which could also be broken down to $0.56 cents per day. Again, remember this individual would be the HARDEST hit by the plan.

And actually if you make less than $9,350, you do not have to submit your tax information so this truly only impacts those individuals who make between 9350 & 10000. Can you provide me what percentage of the population that is and also let me know if they are not receiving more than $17/month in any type of government assistance programs which could be considered neutralized by this plan.

Sometimes politicians, pawns, and journalists exclaim; "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is just accepted to be fact.

But what does that really mean?

Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, I hope the following will help. Please read it carefully.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.The fifth would pay $1.The sixth would pay $3.The seventh would pay $7.The eighth would pay $12.The ninth would pay $18.The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal. So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men Began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

john9blue wrote:a smear campaign is any campaign with the intention of ruining someone's reputation. juan posted information about ryan that he personally finds disagreeable, and thought that it would convince people to vote against ryan. what he didn't realize is that much of what he posted is accepted by many people and is why they ARE voting for ryan. he forgot to post WHY ryan's views are bad for the economy, instead tossing down a bunch of links, many of which lead to blatantly biased websites.

mostly i'm bemused by the speed of his campaign and exasperated by his constant praise of things like obamacare for purely selfish reasons.

It seems there's a history between Juan and this forum I wasn't aware of.

For what it's worth, I agree wholly with his stance on Ryan. Whether or not Obama's slo-mo recovery is the best we could have hoped for, Ryan's signature budget seems to have the most punishing effects on the already-punished middle class. His ideas about entitlement reform may spur a much-needed debate about the future of our social programs, but in my opinion his plans call for actions that are far more abrupt and dramatic than is necessary or wise.

If you are exasperated by Juan's "purely selfish" praise for progressive programs that benefit him, can you also see why we are exasperated by Romney and Ryan's praise of things like the Ryan Budget, which they benefit from most of all?

Night Strike wrote:Actually, it has occurred more than once. In fact, it's been the only thing coming from the campaign and surrogates for the past 2 weeks. From Harry Reid making up the claim to the campaign itself now running ads alleging the action.

I don't think it's fair to conflate one staffer's remarks with the entire campaign. Her "felon" accusation was out of line and I would greatly respect a statement from Obama putting it right, but excluding her remarks the motivation behind seeking the tax returns is seemingly to prove that Romney pays an unusually low tax rate. The Democrats really want to prove that the wealthy pay a smaller share of their larger amounts of money than the vast majority of Americans this election, and Mitt Romney's tax returns are a means to that end. It is perfectly justifiable to seek a candidate's economic information when said candidate is running on a largely economic platform.

Night Strike wrote:Where is "predatory capitalism" ever even alluded to in the cancer ad? The guy is blaming Romney for firing him and killing his wife. The accusations are quite simple but the truth is far from what is shown in the ad.

"Predatory capitalism" is not mentioned in the ad, it's a term I cribbed from elsewhere regarding Romney's perceived corporate strategy of buying companies, "eating" them, and moving on. It wasn't meant insultingly, though I see that it's a somewhat loaded term.

That said, at no point in the ad does Soptic blame Romney for killing his wife. The point of the whole ad is that when Bain Capital closed down factories, real people suffered. It's more affecting than reams of statistics or graphs representing thousands of fired humans, and it should in no way be interpreted as an accusation of personal wrongdoing on Romney's part.